


There's Probably a German Word for This

by matchsticks_p (matchsticks)



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Frank Ocean - Freeform, Holiday Fic Exchange, M/M, Multi, Scheming, fake boyfriends, mistletoe cliche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 21:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchsticks/pseuds/matchsticks_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry uses Nick's radio dj powers for evil and also for love. Or, a story about Harry and Nick pretending to date while trying to get Zayn and Liam to date for real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Probably a German Word for This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [proteinscollide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide/gifts).



They're at the Funky Buddha again, even though Harry had promised Nick that he'd never have to go back there, ever. The only consolation is that he's managed to rope Matt, Ian, and Fiona into coming along, under the guise of a team outing, and the look on Ian Chaloner's face as a girl tries to lick it is sublime. There's also unlimited free drinks for him and his posse, because Liam is a rich and generous man. The drinks are a consolation too, as well as a mercy.

Liam's been hosting a lot of parties ever since his breakup. Nick doesn't even remember what this one's for. But Harry's starting to get worried about him and makes a point of going to every one these days, presumably to make sure he doesn't make any terrible life choices. As though Harry's the best man for that job. Liam makes a point of inviting Nick every time as well, all "You know you're welcome to come with Harry, right?" as he presses his hand sincerely, no matter how many times Nick explains that he is not, despite the jokes, actually Harry's boyfriend.

His life is very hard.

Nick tosses back another vodka-cranberry and watches Liam fist pump on the dance floor with his friends. There must be a German word for this complex mix of secondhand embarrassment, nostalgia, slight hatred, and genuine concern that he feels.

"I think he's probably going to snap out of it soon," Harry says, sitting next to him. "This has to be the worst of it. He's going to get it all out of his system and then he'll be back to being Mr. Sensible again, our very own Gary Barliam."

"I really hope so," Zayn sighs, on the other side of Nick.

Nick looks at him.

He's curled into his seat, rumpled and miserable, eyes glued to the way Liam backs his booty up on strange women and strange men indiscriminately. He looks like he'd rather be sleeping, and Nick can relate. He also looks besotted with Liam, and Nick can't quite relate to that but it makes him reach over to give his head a good rub.

"Hey," Zayn grouses. "Hands off the quiff."

"This club isn't big enough for both our quiffs," Nick teases. He gives Zayn's arm a quick squeeze just in case he can't tell, through his haze of melancholy, that he's joking. 

Zayn heaves another sigh and slumps against Nick's shoulder. "Why can't my friends be like you? They point blank refused to come with me again, even though I begged and begged."

"It's because I'm amazing," Nick says, patting Zayn's hand.

"It's because I have a lot of photographic blackmail material on him," Harry corrects.

As nice as it is to have Zayn Malik draped all over oneself, Nick feels like it's his moral duty to convince him to get on the dance floor.

"You know you want to, really," Nick says, pushing and pulling Zayn up out of his seat. 

"I don't, actually," Zayn counters, going a bit boneless and floppy. 

He is a surprisingly strong boy when he wants to be. You wouldn't guess it from looking at those skinny little arms. Luckily, Nick has about eight feet on him and uses all of his weight to drag Zayn over to where Liam is making a fool of himself. He practically dumps Zayn into Liam's arms, and because Nick is one with the DJ gods, the music switches over to a slow bump'n'grind record at that precise moment.

Nick returns to their booth with satisfaction. It's a universal law that you can only bump and/or grind to bump'n'grind music, which means Liam by force of law [has spread his large hands around Zayn's waist while Zayn backs his assets up against Liam's groin](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me1pdnDYSA1rixz5bo1_500.gif). You could cut the sexual tension with a particularly dull and rusty hatchet. 

Nick turns to Harry and finds him equally absorbed in watching Zayn and Liam dance all up on each other. "So, how long has he been in love with Liam, then?"

"Since, oh...about week two of the X Factor?"

"That is pathetic."

"Heeey, don't call Zayn pathetic. I'm sure in his mind, it's tragic and beautiful rather than completely daft."

The song ends and changes to something with an upbeat pop melody. Nick catches a glimpse of the raw joy on Zayn's face as Liam twirls him and then dips him backward like a Hollywood starlet while holding him tight.

"This is really sad. How do we fix it?"

Nick immediately regrets asking when Harry puts his devious thinking face on and says, "Well, you know how you host the Breakfast Show...?"

\- - -

It's well past Nick's bedtime on a Wednesday night and they're sat in Nick's kitchen, finishing off the last of the wine from dinner. Nick made a chickpea vindaloo and he wants Harry to keep talking about how good it was, because it was amazing, but Harry's got a Sharpie and a napkin in front of him and he's very busy underlining the words _Operation Get Zayn His Man_. Twice.

"I don't see why you can't use real paper," Nick points out, very reasonably. "Or indeed a computer. We have those now, you know. You could send me an email and I could ignore it."

Harry shushes him. "Everybody knows that the best ideas are brainstormed on cocktail napkins. It's a classic."

"Did you just shush me?"

"We can't just announce on air that Zayn's in love with Liam. That would embarrass everybody, especially Zayn's mum. We need to be subtle."

"No, seriously, did you just do that thing with your hand where you mime snapping my mouth closed? Did you really do that?"

"I think the most obvious place to start would be music choice. Like, a song that maybe hints at how he feels."

"—because I don't appreciate being shushed when I've had you over and cooked you this amazing dinner which you've only thanked me for three times."

"It was really, really delicious, Grimmy, honestly. You should quit radio and become a TV chef, give Jamie Oliver's lisp a run for its money. Okay? Now, I need you to concentrate and help me think of a song. What about that Frank Ocean song everybody likes, the one where he's thinking about forever?"

"That song hasn't been on the rotation in months."

"Exactly! So it'll stand out even more when you play it. And then you can say that it's dedicated to Liam, from a secret admirer."

"That's..." Nick trails off to laugh. "That sounds completely naff, and makes no sense besides. Have you confused me for Jameela again? I don't host the Request Show, Harold. I don't dedicate songs to people."

"I wish you were as hot as Jameela Jamil," Harry says. "Is she single?"

"Shut up, Harry, I am not answering that. I want to have one friend left in the world that you haven't slept with by the end of this year. By the end of this week, even."

"So it's settled, then," Harry says. He scribbles _Frank Ocean after 8, to Liam from Zane Lowe_ onto the napkin. He draws a few deformed hearts around the last bit, so if anyone finds it later it'll look like Nick is crazy in love with Zane Lowe. Which is not entirely inaccurate, so Nick lets it slide. "You'll play Frank Ocean, and then you'll give me Jameela's number."

"I'll do one of those things," Nick says. "Tune in tomorrow to find out which."

They bicker for a while and Harry ends up writing down more things Nick's supposed to do on air. There's something about Zayn's birthday, something about Batman and Robin, and Woody and Buzz Lightyear, and a badly drawn representation of Nick in leather bondage gear, which Nick isn't doing, thanks.

Aimee gets in at 2 a.m. reeking of sweat, booze, and other women's perfume. She sees them sitting around the kitchen table, makes an exaggerated show of checking the clock, and says to Nick, "Don't you have work in the morning?"

"This is work," Harry answers for him. "We're planning things for him to say on the show."

"Harry's planning things for me to say on the show," Nick says. "I'm just a mouthpiece. A glorified puppet. May as well have his hand wrist-deep up my arse."

Harry waggles his eyebrows and says, "Maybe you should say _that_ on the show. See how the nation reacts. I reckon we could bring down Tumblr if you imply I've been fisting you."

"Oh, are you're still doing that thing?" Aimee says. She removes her disturbingly large earrings, her bangles, her necklaces, and all the rest of her jewellery—it seems to be a near endless task—and leaves it all scattered across Nick's countertop. She's a terrible houseguest. "When are you going to stop pretend-flirting?"

"When it stops being funny."

"And it'll never stop being funny," Harry adds.

"So I guess we're never going to stop," Nick concludes, quirking his head at Aimee and sticking his tongue out. He uses his elbow to slide the napkin covered in Harry's loopy writing off the table and into his bag, and wonders why he keeps going along with Harry's ludicrous matchmaking plan.

Probably because it's funny too.

\- - -

After a few weeks of dropping every hint Harry thinks up for him, Nick is starting to realise how a person can have a crush on another person for two years without either party doing anything about it. It's possible when the people in question are Zayn and Liam, because they are the densest people in the universe.

 _or maybe they just don't listen to the radio in the morning?_ Nick texts Harry to suggest what he feels is a quite logical reason for why their plan is going nowhere.

_Liam listens to you when he runs. I've personally been with Zayn and turned the radio on for him. I know they've both heard. What if they have a brain problem? :( xx_

Nick laughs, and then realises belatedly that the previous song is ending and he's supposed to talk now. 

"And that was James Arthur with his stirring new single, all about love and broken hearts and all that. I send that one out on behalf of a very nice if moody lad I know, to his unrequited love. Lovely on a rainy Monday morning."

"You keep on dedicating songs on behalf of secret admirers lately," Fincham chimes in to say. "It's just been a very poor cover up all along, hasn't it? The secret admirer is you, isn't it? And we all know who you're in love with."

"Who?" Nick demands, grinning at Fincham, daring him to say any name at all.

"Curly Spice, from One Direction."

"No, Finchy, you're wrong." Nick flicks on some romantic violins to accompany his words. "I think by this point that the entire nation knows I only have eyes for one person, my one and only true love, and that person is..." He pushes the slider most of the way to full and practically has to shout to be heard over the violins, "YOU, MATT FINCHAM!"

Fincham laughs and protests and reiterates that he has a girlfriend, and says he's sorry he brought up the subject at all.

"That's right, you're sorry," Nick says. "And just for that cheek I'm dedicating the next song from this poor lovesick boy to the object of his affection as well." As an electronic bass beat begins, Nick jumps back in to say, "The next song is Skrillex, which isn't very romantic. It may explain why he's still single." 

He turns off his mic and pulls his phone out. Finchy gives him a stern look and taps his watch to remind him that they need to promote the next big Radio 1 contest before the news in ten minutes. Nick waves him off. They have plenty of time. The Skrillex track is almost five minutes long, so Nick can make his call, be back in time to talk about the contest and probably throw to the news a whole minute early.

It's Finchy's fault, anyway. His comments reminded Nick of how ridiculous it is for him to be secretly playing songs for Liam from Zayn. If they haven't pieced together the secret message by now, they never will, and the running 'secret admirer' joke is starting to get a bit stale. He can't do this for another month, no matter how clever Harry thinks his own subtle attention to lyrical implications is. 

He phones Liam and isn't surprised to be answered on the second ring. It's disgusting, how early Liam wakes up even when he doesn't have to work.

"Hi Grimmy, you alright?"

"Yeah, fine, thanks. Listen Liam, I was wondering if I could ask you something."

There's a long, suspicious pause. "This isn't your prank call thing, is it?"

"No. You know those are pre-recorded, right? I'm at work right now, I have to be back on air in four minutes. I just wanted to ask you something about that Christmas party."

"Oh yeah, sure, yeah. What's up?"

"Are you going to be bringing a date?"

"Well, that's kind of a personal question, isn't it?"

"I don't mean to snoop. It's just I've got this friend, right, and if you're not going to be bringing anyone I think maybe they would be very interested."

Another long pause. "Do you swear this isn't a prank call?"

"Liam, two and a half minutes, and then I've got to go back on air."

"See, the thing is, I'm not...I'm not bringing anyone, but there's already someone I really like a lot, and I just haven't worked out how I should tell him."

Nick notes the pronoun and then almost knocks himself out by rolling his eyes so hard. "Let me take a wild guess," he says, using every ounce of his skill as a professional presenter to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, "is it Zayn?"

Liam gasps and splutters and asks how he knows, and Nick itches to just turn the mic back on and blast Liam's admission all over the public airwaves and into Zayn's ears, because this situation is well and truly ludicrous. He could just say the fakest 'oops, my finger slipped' he's ever said, and that would be that. But he has these pesky professional ethics that get in the way, and so all he can do is hit his forehead against his desk with every new loving confession that pours out of Liam's lips. "And he's so kind, you know, and so sweet when he's with his little sisters and cousins. Have you ever seen him with little kids? It's the most heartbreaking thing you'll ever see, I swear. You'd never guess from looking at him but he's so soft at heart, even though he does like to get into spats with people and he likes goading them into fighting. Even that's a bit sexy, because you wouldn't want someone to be soft all the time, you know. And if we're going to talk about sexy, I haven't even started on his amazing body yet. His—"

"Okay, okay, I'm going to have to stop you there," Nick says. "I have to do this next link now. But I'll call you back, and...no, of course I won't tell anyone! Right. Yeah. Okay, I have to go now, Liam. Okay, byyyye."

He hangs up, tells the nation about the new Radio 1 contest, and then spends the duration of Newsbeat coming to the conclusion that he has been letting actual children run the show. What did he expect? Of course it's all a stupid, childish mess. Cryptic love letters through the radio won't cut it. He's going to have to have to take matters into his own hands.

\- - - 

Being Nick's friend has probably made Alexa Chung's life weirder in ways no one ever expected. Who would've thought three years ago that her indie Christmas party would have so many boyband members in it? 

Of course there's no mistletoe anywhere—it's an indie Christmas party, which means either vintage or ironic decorations only: priceless gold filigree and glasswork, and faux stained glass of Jesus with a Santa hat on. Nick is prepared for this likelihood and has brought his own mistletoe. He is on a mission. 

Liam's by the punch bowl, talking to some girls while Zayn hovers near him, gazing at him with open adoration through devastatingly long eyelashes, occasionally licking his lips unconsciously. Liam's arm snakes around Zayn's hips and holds him close, seemingly without him noticing what he's doing. Nick is on the most obvious mission ever. He fingers the mistletoe in his pocket and strides over to the punch. 

Zayn watches him with a curious little frown between his brows. "What are you doing?"

Nick fishes out the mistletoe and sticks it lopsidedly onto the nearest doorjamb with some blu-tac. "I," Nick says, taking Liam firmly by his very solid, well-muscled shoulders and positioning him in the door, "am greatly improving your life."

With that, he shoves Zayn into Liam so that Liam has no choice but to catch him.

"Oops, looks like you two are under some mistletoe!" Nick says loudly. "Guess you have to kiss!"

"Really?" Harry hisses behind him. "The most clichéd move in the book? You expect this to work?"

Nick ignores him and starts chanting "kiss him! kiss him! kiss him!"   
Other party guests begin to join in.

Liam, looking redder than Nick has ever seen him (and Nick has seen him awfully drunk before), shrugs and murmurs something to Zayn that's lost beneath the crowd's raucous chanting. 

And then finally, _finally_ , he kisses him. 

It's a proper pop star kiss, like the two leads in a movie, with long fingers tilting chiselled jaws and everything, wet lips and just a hint of teeth, and not too much tongue because they're in public and they both have too much respect for each other, or something. It's positively revolting, how perfect they are.

Nick makes a noise of disgust and starts complaining about how they'll be insufferable now, and how they should've thought this through, because no one likes being around that fairytale couple all the time, but Harry insults him by jumping onto his shoulders and squealing, yes, _squealing_ , "I can't believe that worked!"

" _I_ can't believe I ever go along with any of your plans, because you're shit," Nick says, shaking him off. 

Harry laughs, and when Nick gets a proper look at him he realises he's beaming, just over the moon because he's so genuinely happy for his friends. Nick hates this band. They're all revolting.

"Speaking of stupid things I like to plan..." Harry says, waggling his eyebrows. He trails off and pulls Nick by the hand until they're under the mistletoe, next to Liam and Zayn. And then he puts his hand over Nick's mouth and kisses the back of his hand in what Nick judges from everybody's wolf whistles to be a rather convincing fake snog from afar.

Nick wrestles free and spies Louis and Niall hanging about, looking equally delighted about Liam and Zayn, and if he has to be stuck in a rom com then he may as well go the whole hog. He bodily drags Louis into a cuddle. Niall comes of his own accord, not needing any encouragement to bounce into their midst.

This is how Nick learns the lesson that using the radio to meddle in other people's love lives is immoral and unwise, because it will lead to a group hug at the least indie Christmas party ever, surrounded by joy and good cheer.

**Author's Note:**

> first [posted to livejournal](http://matchsticks-p.livejournal.com/91917.html) on 2012-12-30


End file.
